mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A retail company is planning to migrate its e-commerce application to Azure. The application will run on an Azure virtual machine that the company will manage. The IT manager wants to ensure that security patches are applied promptly. According to the shared responsibility model, who is responsible for applying security updates to the guest operating system of the Azure virtual machine?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →

A retail company is planning to migrate its e-commerce application to Azure. The application will run on an Azure virtual machine that the company will manage. The IT manager wants to ensure that security patches are applied promptly. According to the shared responsibility model, who is responsible for applying security updates to the guest operating system of the Azure virtual machine?

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Distractor review

Microsoft, because they manage the hypervisor under the virtual machine.

Microsoft is responsible for the physical and virtual hosting infrastructure (including the hypervisor), but the guest operating system running inside the virtual machine is the customer's domain. Patching the guest OS is not a Microsoft responsibility.

B

Best answer

The customer, because the guest operating system is under the customer's control.

In the shared responsibility model, the customer manages the guest OS, applications, and data. Even though the VM runs on Microsoft infrastructure, the customer has full administrative access and must apply updates to the guest OS.

C

Distractor review

Both Microsoft and the customer share responsibility equally for patching the guest operating system.

Responsibilities are not equal; they are divided. Microsoft handles the infrastructure layer, and the customer handles the guest OS. Neither party shares patching duties for the guest OS.

D

Distractor review

The customer, but only if they have configured Azure Policy to enforce patch compliance.

Azure Policy can help enforce compliance rules, such as requiring specific patch levels, but it does not change who is responsible for applying the patches. The customer must still perform or schedule the patching regardless of Azure Policy.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic

NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
  • PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
  • Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
  • NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.

TExam Day Tips

  • Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
  • Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
  • Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.

Related practice questions

Related AZ-900 practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

A developer is building a serverless application that requires integration with an on-premises SQL Server database for real-time data processing. The on-premises network is connected to Azure via a site-to-site VPN. Which Azure service would allow the function to securely access the on-premises database without exposing it to the public internet?

Question 2

A solutions architect is designing a storage solution for a large media company. The company needs to store video files that are accessed infrequently but must be retained for several years for compliance. Which two Azure storage options meet these requirements? (Select two.)

Question 3

A company deploys a multi-tier application using Azure virtual machines. The web tier VMs must be evenly distributed across two distinct data centers within an Azure region to avoid a single point of failure from an infrastructure outage. Which Azure construct should they use to meet this requirement?

Question 4

A company wants to enforce a set of security policies across all their Azure subscriptions. They have created several individual policy definitions. Which Azure construct should they use to group these policies together and assign them as a single package?

Question 5

A company deploys a line-of-business application on an Azure virtual machine. The IT team wants to ensure the application remains secure. According to the shared responsibility model, which of the following security tasks is the sole responsibility of the customer (the company)?

Question 6

A company develops a web API that runs on Azure App Service. The development team wants to deploy a new version of the API to a staging environment, run integration tests against it, and then gradually shift production traffic to the new version. If any issues are detected, they want to immediately roll back to the previous version without redeploying. Which Azure App Service feature should the team use to meet these requirements?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this AZ-900 question test?

Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: The customer, because the guest operating system is under the customer's control. — The shared responsibility model defines the division of security tasks between the cloud provider and the customer. For Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) workloads such as virtual machines, the customer retains control of and responsibility for the guest operating system, applications, and data. Microsoft is responsible for the physical host, hypervisor, and network infrastructure. Therefore, applying security updates to the guest OS is the customer's responsibility.

What should I do if I get this AZ-900 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.

Discussion

Loading comments…

Sign in to join the discussion.